Women of Bethlehem Steel - Donna Goss

Annotation Donna Goss grew-up in Bethlehem, PA and continues to live there today. The child of a steelworker father, Goss herself began working at Bethlehem Steel in 1972 in the typing pool and advanced to senior level management positions over the course of a decades long career. Goss eventually left the Bethlehem Steel Corporation and started a second career at the Center for Business and Industry at Northampton Community College, where she is currently the Co-Director of Leadership Development. In her interview, Goss describes her experiences as a woman in the male-dominated environment of corporate management and of Bethlehem Steel. Goss relates the strategies she and other women used to navigate corporate environments, respond to discrimination, build careers, and open-up space for the next generation of women workers. Goss’s stories of work, education, and her personal life speak to the continued struggle of women against gender discrimination and inequality as well as the lasting impact of the steel industry on the city of Bethlehem, PA. This interview is part of a series of interviews conducted by Lehigh University and the Steelworkers’ Archives and supported by the Lehigh University Mellon Digital Humanities Initiative and the South Side Initiative. An oral history interview is an act of memory and hence both highly selective and highly subjective. While it accurately reflects what a narrator remembers (or chooses to tell) of his or her experience and viewpoints, it may not accurately represent what actually transpired or what another person may have experienced. As such users should subject interviews to the same degree of critical scrutiny they would any other historical source.